Benefit: You do not suffer from any further age related ability score loss, even if you advance age categories before the regime has had time to kick in. Ability score loss already suffered due to aging does not heal.

and 15 minutes of intense meditation (You will be incapable of moving under your own power) or 30 minutes of light meditation (You can move at your full base land speed, control a horse, talk, etc, but you cannot engage in any demanding task, skill checks, fighting, etc)

Penalties for not abiding by the Regime: If you do not fulfill your regime for at least three days, you lose your ability score bonus.

If you have abandoned your regime for a week, you take a -1 penalty to your stats. (Assuming you are middle aged or older)

If you have abandoned your regime for two weeks, you take a -3 penalty to your stats. (Assuming you are old or venerable)

If you have abandoned your regime for three weeks, you take a -6 penalty to your stats. (Assuming you are venerable)

These penalties go away after a week of resuming your regime. If you abandoned your regime before it kicked in, the penalties are permanent.

Special: Standard adventuring qualifies the exercise requirement, but you must still meditate.

All you need to know about a regime, right now, is that it takes 30 days before you gain the benefits.

hymer

2012-03-29, 01:13 PM

I like the idea, though I'm a bit worried this will be more useful to (say) wizards than to fighters. Could be a cute feat for your lvl 1 wizard to start him out with Con16 and at venerable age.

Just to Browse

2012-03-29, 02:47 PM

If I were a warrior, I just wouldn't play at an old age, and I'd spend my feats on combat stuff. If I were wizard at low levels and wanted a buff, I might take this feat.

If that's what you were going for, I think this worked pretty well, but it's pretty mage-exclusive.

Tanuki Tales

2012-03-29, 03:40 PM

If I were a warrior, I just wouldn't play at an old age, and I'd spend my feats on combat stuff.

Some folks want to play as Zaeed Massani.

Yitzi

2012-03-30, 10:02 AM

What about ability scores of 13? Can they suffer full penalty?

Also, if you're at 16, and lose 1 due to age, and then take the feat, the way the feat is written you still lost that one (since you're at 15, and that allows you to have a penalty up to +2).

And this could be very useful for a build that uses both mental and physical abilities.

Sgt. Cookie

2012-03-30, 12:16 PM

What about ability scores of 13? Can they suffer full penalty?

No, they suffer from a -2 penalty.

Also, if you're at 16, and lose 1 due to age, and then take the feat, the way the feat is written you still lost that one (since you're at 15, and that allows you to have a penalty up to +2).

Yep. This is pretty much timeless body in feat form.

And this could be very useful for a build that uses both mental and physical abilities.

Thanks. I think.

Deepbluediver

2012-03-31, 12:06 PM

I'm not entirely sure why WotC decided that every physical ability score needs to decrease and every mental ability score needs to increase when aging. There are plenty of cases involving senility, dementia, and loss of senses associated with old age.
My 93 year old grandmother is friendly enough, but with her arthritis she doesn't exactly make for the most charasmatic of leaders. :smallbiggrin:

Frankly, the aging-system seems like it was done pretty half-assed. I can picture the WotC R&D dept. going "ok, we're gonna take the most stereotypical version of this that we can and finish off the whole thing before lunch....which is in 5 minutes readysetgo!"

Since aging doesn't show up a lot in most adventures anyway, I would prefer to either scrap the entire idea and just assume that reality doesn't apply to our heroic characters, or significantly rework it so that it doens't screw over melee classes quite as badly.

This feat obviously helps a little bit, but it still imposes a cost on melee players that at the same time benefits casters.

Sgt. Cookie

2012-03-31, 12:27 PM

Perhaps state that all full and 3/4 BaB classes gain this feat for free?

Just to Browse

2012-03-31, 06:45 PM

Some folks want to play as Zaeed Massani.

Do not penalize players for roleplaying. Forcing a player to spend character resources on something strictly in roleplay is the antithesis of what D&D should be doing.

Perhaps state that all full and 3/4 BaB classes gain this feat for free?
As nice as it is to have a feat to your name, aging is not something a feat should handle. Age is really all flavor, and making this a feat is either giving your casters +3 to their casting stat (read: borken) or adding a bit of fluff to your melee classes.

Tanuki Tales

2012-03-31, 08:03 PM

Do not penalize players for roleplaying. Forcing a player to spend character resources on something strictly in roleplay is the antithesis of what D&D should be doing.

Yeah, that's totally not what you said, like at all. You said that you would never want to play an old man who was a warrior. Sure, that may be partially connected to the physical penalties incurred by being of advanced age, but you never said anything to that end, just that you would only ever play a young warrior.

Some people want to play Bad Ass Old Men and some people want rules that state what detriments occur from the grueling test of time falling on mortals like a lead brick. When those two meet, feats like these come into existence. There's nothing wrong about that and it's in no way bad design.

The only real issue is that it just so happens to further exacerbate the ol' "Linear Fighter, Quadratic Wizard" which is the true foe and problem here and the true antithesis to what some people believe DnD should be.

Yitzi

2012-04-01, 10:41 AM

No, they suffer from a -2 penalty.

Then your text should say so.

Yep. This is pretty much timeless body in feat form.

Except that it does give back stats, provided you're old or venerable when you take it and not merely middle-aged (although you are extremely unclear about how much is given back.)

While the idea is interesting, the way it's written it's extremely difficult to figure out, and the easiest way to read it usually makes no sense. It needs revision.

Deepbluediver

2012-04-01, 11:45 AM

Except that it does give back stats, provided you're old or venerable when you take it and not merely middle-aged (although you are extremely unclear about how much is given back.)

Yeah, I kinda think that it shouldn't give back stats. Either that or it should have tougher prerequisities, likes having ALL your physical ability scores above a certain level, which sounds more like "perfection" to me.

With regards to making aging less crippling to melee and less awesome for casters, what if we made it effect all stats equally, but gave back some other bonus to partially replace the loss. I'm drawing my inspiration from the flaw-system here, which I know can be helpful and fun for the roleplaying that several people have mentioned.

Personally, I think that a -6 to ANY stat feels nigh-crippling, even at high levels, so lets reduce the penalties a bit. Advancing from Adulthood to Middle Age and from MA to Old Age causes you to take a -1 penalty to all stats, both physical and mental. Advancing from Old Age to Venerable gives you a -2 penalty to all stats.
As people age, their senses fade, they tend to forget things learned years or decades ago and they are less imposing and empathic; their mental capacity decreases just as their physical vitality does.

In exchange, every time you go up by an age category you gain 1 bonus feat, 6 skill points, and a 5% (stacking) increase to any XP you earn.
I'm not saying that the benefits perfectly balance the loss, but these changes would hopefully make it more interesting if some one wants to go this route.

Cieyrin

2012-04-02, 12:19 PM

Looks fine to me, though the problem around 13 could be fixed just by making the sentence about 14 be 13 or higher. Maybe have a Special clause for if you do pick up Timeless Body that it fully eliminates physical age penalties, which you can't achieve till 13th-15th anyways, so it's a nice perk for the long haul.

If it's that concerning as a feat, I could easily see it converted to a Skill Trick dependent on Concentration or Autohypnosis, where deep meditation and your well-honed physique keep you in shape like a person 20-30 human years younger.

Sgt. Cookie

2012-04-02, 12:25 PM

I hadn't thought about this as a skill trick at all, really. But now you mention it, yeah, it would work better as one of those.